more than twenty years the

been debated by public men.

problem has

Upon the so

lution of the proposition master minds have dwelt, and around it political issues have been built. All this has happened without either bringing us to a consummation of our national aspiration or pointing the way to a successful policy.

Many men of broad vision sincerely doubt the practicability of re-establishing an American merchant marine without absolutely revolutionary changes in our navigation laws and without a repudiation of our policy toward maritime labor. Moreover, there are some who can conceive of no solution for the problem other than by straight subsidies from the Federal Government, gratuitous bounties which shall offset the difference in conditions of navigation among American merchantmen and the merchantmen of competing nations.

Others there are who contend with force that the Federal Government itself must

embark upon this enterprise; that the pioneering must be done by an interest having boundless resources; an interest that is not compelled to concern itself with dividends to its stockholders or returns to its bondholders; an interest that can afford to suffer losses and sustain them for an indefinite period; an interest that has a single purpose the general welfare of the nation as a whole. Obviously there is but one such interest, and that is the Government of the United States.

Each of these conflicting views is held by men of standing, and they are entitled, therefore, to the most thoughtful consideration by all elements of our people.

It is my purpose to present a relief measure which will, in my judgment, harmonize in a large degree different opinions and bring together in a common bond those earnest men upon whom, as the representatives of all the people, rests the responsibility of dealing with these issues. And the pro

posal which will be unfolded here, the one to which I have dedicated this volume, is not the snap judgment of a propagandist. My conclusions have been reached as the result of forty years' practical experience in the steamship business and an intimate though unofficial relationship with four national administrations.

I am firmly convinced that conditions are today favorable for the re-establishment of our merchant marine on a sound and permanent basis, for an expansion of our foreign commerce in proportions undreamed of a decade ago, and for the development by the same stroke of a naval and military auxiliary and a naval reserve that will prove a bulwark in our program for national defense. That each of these steps has a vital bearing upon our well-being as a nation no one will dispute, and any feasible plan whereby they may be accomplished deserves a sympathetic hearing.

Professor E. R. Seligman, of Columbia

University, in discussing these important phases of the situation, ably says:

"To those who are old enough to remember much of the past decade, it is a rather sad and discomforting spectacle which confronts us: a nation which a century or a little more ago had virtually the commercial mastery of the seas; a nation which before the Civil War had its flag flying in every port in the world, civilized and uncivilized, is today a nation whose oversea commercial shipping is almost a negligible quantity. Many of you, I fancy, in traveling in Europe, through the Suez Canal, the Orient, must have been painfully struck by the scarcity of the American flag. We see every other flag in the world-the Norwegian, the Danish, and every other small nation-but the American flags are few and far between. The problem has now become acute in the United States, and more acute because of the recent movement for military and naval preparedness.

"I wish at the outset to accentuate that point of view. The problem of American shipping is only partly an economic and commercial problem. It is also partly a naval and military problem. We know that the efforts made and the achievements accomplished by Great Britain and France in different parts of the world, such as they have been, would have been utterly impossible without the immense auxiliary fleet which has been at their disposal. We look back with shamefacedness upon the history of our picayune trouble with Spain and the Spanish War. We know to what lengths of inefficiency we were compelled to descend, and not so much because of military as because of naval unpreparedness. I therefore wish to strike this note at the outset of the discussion. The problem before us is a great one, not alone in its economic and commercial aspects, but from the point of view of nationality, nationalism."

The deplorable conditions which Profes

sor Seligman sets forth are not matters of argument. They are matters of fact. They are so recognized wherever there is intelligent discussion of our national welfare. Before proceeding with possible remedies, however, a full comprehension of the present-day state of our merchant marine is important. What we need may be better understood by measuring what we have. And what we have, or to put it more accurately, what we have not, is particularly impressive in the light of history.

No American need blush for our past as a maritime nation. We may feel mortification that we have now fallen from our high estate as master of the seas, but we cannot forget the triumphs which marked the earlier history of the republic. We cannot forget the romantic era of the famous clipper ship, nor the fact that we were pathfinders in the development of steam navigation. We cannot forget that Fulton's "Clermont" startled the whole world, or that the